Digital storytelling in economics education: the use of analogy-based cartoons to improve student performance

Digital Storytelling (DS) has been a popular instructional tool since the 1990s, with its effectiveness lying in that stories function as narrative analogies, bridging abstract concepts to familiar experiences and prior learning. This educational role of DS (EDS) can be reinforced through collaborative analogy generation and enhanced with cartoon co-design rendering these analogies in accessible, engaging, and memorable forms. Research has consistently shown that EDS and cartoons can have a positive impact on student engagement and learning outcomes. In higher education subjects such as economics, however, most studies remain opinion-based and descriptive, with claims about the value and role of EDS and cartoons being essentially views and ideas on integrating them as pedagogical tools rather than empirical evidence on their effectiveness in facilitating understanding economic concepts and student engagement. This study examines the relationship between exposure to EDS co-designed cartoons that embed co-generated analogies and students’ conceptual understanding by surveying 60 undergraduate students on their performance through an ordinary least squares estimation technique. The findings suggest that exposure to EDS cartoons may be associated with improvements in students’ understanding and point to the need for future research on the underlying mechanism in promoting conceptual understanding of economic concepts.